Happiness In Reverse
The accused, Donald Maudsley, is an ordinary enough fellow as regards appearances. A little beard, rather beaky nose, fair hair tied back in a short pony tail. Of average height, or under. A melancholy man, but not unintelligent. An old Oriel man, in fact.
He has a way of telling his story in the third person, which I found rather irritating at first. It becomes evident that he suffers from dissociation of personality.
A transcript of his deposition runs as follows:
After gaining his degree, this little man, by name Donald Maudsley, went into Earth Sciences. He attended the Brazil Conference, after which he disappeared into the wilds of South America. This is the essence of his story.
From the archives
·
1984
And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief As Photos
When I open my wallet
to show my papers
pay money
or check the time of a train
I look at your face.
The flower’s pollen
is older than the mountains
Aravis is young
as mountains go.
The flower’s ovules
will be seeding still
when Aravis then aged
is no more than a hill.
The flower in the heart’s
wallet, the force
of what lives us
outliving the mountain.
And our faces, my heart, brief as photos.
The first was a hare. At two thousand meters on a mountain frontier. Where are you going? asked the French customs officer. To Italy, I said. Why didn’t you stop? he asked. I thought you beckoned me on, I replied. And at that moment everything was forgotten because a hare ran across the road, ten yards away from us. It was a lean hare with tufts on the tips of its ears of brown smoke. And although it was running slowly, it ran for its life. Sometimes that can happen.
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And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief As Photos
When I open my wallet
to show my papers
pay money
or check the time of a train
I look at your face.
The flower’s pollen
is older than the mountains
Aravis is young
as mountains go.
The flower’s ovules
will be seeding still
when Aravis then aged
is no more than a hill.
The flower in the heart’s
wallet, the force
of what lives us
outliving the mountain.
And our faces, my heart, brief as photos.
The first was a hare. At two thousand meters on a mountain frontier. Where are you going? asked the French customs officer. To Italy, I said. Why didn’t you stop? he asked. I thought you beckoned me on, I replied. And at that moment everything was forgotten because a hare ran across the road, ten yards away from us. It was a lean hare with tufts on the tips of its ears of brown smoke. And although it was running slowly, it ran for its life. Sometimes that can happen.
Read more of this excerpt...
WORDS TO LIVE BY
1988 ·
NON-FICTION
NEW MUSIC